Lake Superior Paper - The Efficiency of Built-Up Wooden Beams (Discussion, 993)

To any one acquainted with the practical conditions surrounding the mining engineer and mine-manager, especially in this country, the presentation to the American Institute of Mining Engineers of a paper on the above subject will need no explanation. The members of this profession are continually called upon to design and erect, both above and underground, structures which involve the use of beams. Not to mention the various buildings connected with large mining operations, I need only refer, in support of this statement, to trestles, derricks, headworks, etc., on the surface, and to timbered stations and other spaces of large span in the mine-workings. Notwithstanding the rapidity with which iron and steel are replacing wood in the construction of large buildings, there will always be cases in which the use of metal will be unadvisable. Especially will this be true in districts remote from large cities. Works of temporary character will continue to use timber. High freight-charges, the liability of delays in delivering iron, and the temporary character of many of the structures, will for many years to come make it advantageous for the mines west of the Mississippi and on Lake Superior to construct their buildings almost exclusively of wood. The timber-resources of the country are decreasing so rapidly that already the engineer finds difficulty at times in obtaining beams of large size. This difficulty will steadily increase, and will force the constructor to resort more frequently to built-up beams, such as have long been used in Europe, owing to the difficulty of obtaining there such large sizes of timber as have